Name

Synopsis

Inputs

Specifies the hostname of the machine on which the
postmaster is running.
If host begins with a slash, it is used as the directory
for the unix domain socket.

-p, --port port

Specifies the Internet TCP/IP port or local Unix
domain socket file extension on which the postmaster is listening for
connections.

-e, --echo

Echo the queries that createuser generates and sends to
the backend.

-q, --quiet

Do not display a response.

-d, --createdb

Allows the new user to create databases.

-D, --no-createdb

Forbids the new user to create databases.

-a, --adduser

Allows the new user to create other users.

-A, --no-adduser

Forbids the new user to create other users.

-P, --pwprompt

If given, createuser
will issue a prompt for the password of the new user.
This is not necessary if you do not plan on using
password authentication.

-i, --sysid uid

Allows you to pick a non-default user id for the new
user. This is not necessary, but some people like it.

username

Specifies the name of the Postgres user to be created. This
name must be unique among all Postgres users.

You will be prompted for a name and other missing
information if it is not specified on the command line.

The options -h, -p, and -e, are passed
on literally to psql. The psql options -U
and -W are available as well, but
their use can be confusing in this context.

Outputs

CREATE USER

All is well.

createuser: creation of user
"username" failed

Something went wrong. The user was not created.

If there is an error condition, the backend error message
will be displayed. See CREATE USER and psql for
possibilities.

Description

createuser creates a new
Postgres user. Only users with
usesuper set in the pg_shadow table can create new Postgres users.

createuser is a shell script
wrapper around the SQL command
CREATE USER via the
Postgres interactive terminal
psql. Thus, there is nothing special
about creating users via this or other methods. This means that
the psql must be found by the
script and that a database server is running at the targeted
host. Also, any default settings and environment variables
available to psql and the
libpq front-end library do
apply.

Usage

To create a user joe on the default
database server:

$ createuser joeIs the new user allowed to create databases? (y/n) nShall the new user be allowed to create more new users? (y/n) nCREATE USER

To create the same user joe using
the postmaster on host eden, port 5000, avoiding the prompts
and taking a look at the underlying query: